Access to digital information, particularly Internet websites, and other web based content and multimedia documents is critically important in the modern world. In the field of elementary education, for example, it is axiomatic that children who have access to the Internet may academically leave behind children who do not have access to the Internet. In the world of business, access to multimedia presentations, social networking sites, and the like can be the difference between success and bankruptcy. However, despite the important role information access has in society, it is clearly the case that all members of the public do not have equal access to information, especially with regards to the Internet.
Access to the full range of information available on the Internet can be particularly difficult for persons with physical or mental disabilities. For example, a person with a sight impairment may have difficulty reading on-screen text, and a person with a hearing impairment may be unable to respond to audible prompts. Assistive software and applications are available that are capable of converting online information into a format that may be perceived by any impaired user, such as those that convert text to voice. Unfortunately though, assistive software does not always provide a complete remedy.
A concern with the available Internet landscape is that in order for the assistive technology to correctly interpret a page on a website, that page must be coded with information that is not required for use by users without certain disabilities. Many providers of web sites and web applications forget to supply this information, or they code it incorrectly. In addition, a great many sites have dynamic events/functions, including things such as instant messaging, automatic updates, or search suggestions. New and different coding requirements need to be followed for these dynamic sites and functions to be interpreted correctly by the assistive technology. And, the programmers of these sites, having not grasped the correct encoding for static pages, may be at a further disadvantage when confronted with dynamic coding requirements. The result is that entire sites, along with the site's dynamic events/functions, may be or become totally unusable by persons with disabilities.
Using an online social networking service as an example, a user homepage may include a rich graphic display of content and dynamic events (e.g., chat). Some of that content, such as text, may be properly interpreted by available assistive software. However, the software may overlook other information, images, and data. Also of concern is that assistive software may not react to the dynamic events, such as the appearance of a friend request notice or instant messaging communication. A friend request, for example, may take the form of a small, red, numeric graphic or “jewel” that appears along the top of the homepage. The “jewel” may not be keyboard focusable, meaning one cannot tab a cursor on to the graphic to select it and rendering it unusable by the assistive software. Additionally, even if the assistive software detected the “jewel, it may not be read and/or properly interpreted by the software. For example, while the jewel in practice may not be visually displayed, the related programming code for the jewel may be either functioning or detectable by the assistive software. If a user has no friend requests pending, the website could visually display nothing (the absence of any visual indication meaning that no friend requests are pending). For a normal user this selective display of the jewel is unimportant. However, not being able to see the graphic, the lack of a textual representation as to the meaning of the missing visual may prove highly confusing to the assistive software and result in confusion for the user.
Prior efforts to address online access to information have included the generation of accessibility guidelines. Among the guidelines used are those of section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended, 29 U.S.C. 794d. Section 508 requires that when Federal agencies develop, procure, maintain, or use electronic and information technology, Federal employees with disabilities have access to and use of information and data that is comparable to the access and use by Federal employees who are not individuals with disabilities, unless an undue burden would be imposed on the agency. Section 508 also requires that individuals with disabilities, who are members of the public seeking information or services from a Federal agency, have access to and use of information and data that is comparable to that provided to the public who are not individuals with disabilities, unless an undue burden would be imposed on the agency. As more and more websites move to a web 2.0 format and/or integrate HTML5, it will become more difficult to comply with guidelines like Section 508.
In addition, as overall Internet use has increased, more users routinely enter sensitive information like social security numbers, financial account information, and personal information into webpages. The security of this information is of paramount concern to both businesses and private individuals as they try to balance the convenience and accessibility of online commerce with the threat of identity theft. A common means of fraud involves gaining unauthorized access to the webpage code and then carefully modifying the webpage to record user inputted data without changing the presentation of the webpage. Users then access the page, unaware of the security breach, and unknowingly have their information stolen. As such, businesses are justifiably reluctant to permit third parties to access their webpage source code due to the increased risk of a security breach.
In view of at the above, there exists a need for a system and method that improves the presentation of webpages viewed with assistive software. In addition, the system should be configured so that it that does not require access to the underlying code, the use of a special browser or the transmission of customer data or the source code of the website to a remote/third party location that may (or may not) be secure.
U.S. Patent Application Publication No.: US 2005/0160065 A1 to Seeman disclosed the use of a rendering system for use in converting websites so that they may be better interpreted by assistive software. Seeman, for example, described the use of an accessibility engine that used a resource-specific knowledge base and user preferences to convert a resource, such as a website, into an improved accessibility resource. The resource specific knowledge included content and formatting information that reduced ambiguities, translated implied information into explicit information, and improved the accessibility of the resource content. The user preferences represented the physical capabilities of a user's access device, and the user's semantic and personal preferences for how content should be displayed. An editor was also provided that used an annotation wizard to create the resource-specific knowledge base based on the original resource. However, while Seeman addressed issues related to the interaction of assistive software and website, what Seeman proposed was a static solution that may not permit the software to interpret dynamic or interactive events that occur on a site.
Another static-type solution was proposed in a paper by Macias and Sanchez entitled “Improving Web Accessibility for Visually Handicapped People Using KAI,” WSE, pp. 49, 3rd International Workshop on Web Site Evolution (WSE'01), 2001. In the paper the authors disclosed alternative means of increasing the accessibility of websites and described the use of “KAI”, an accessibility kit for the Internet that considered both the user and the designer. According to the authors, the KAI could classify different components of a published Web page and present them to a user according to his/her needs. At the same time, the KAI improved a user's accessibility by using a BML (Blind Markup Language) that helped the authors develop better structured pages.